North Korea, stop sending balloons full of garbage. Then he threatens: “100 times greater.”

North Korea announced last night that it would “temporarily stop” sending balloons laden with waste to South Korea, and North Korean Deputy Defense Minister Kim Kang Il said that through this measure, North Korea wants to “allow the South Koreans to experience how difficult it is to clean up.” Waste,” the official news agency, the Korean Central News Agency (“KCNA”), reported. Kim described North Korea’s launch of the dirt-laden balloons as a “countermeasure” to the activities of North Korean defectors and human rights groups from South Korean territory. The vice minister said that Korea The North will resume sending balloons across the inter-Korean border if the South resumes leaflet activities against Pyongyang, warning that in this case the amount of waste and balloons sent to the South will be “100 times” greater than the volume of materials received.

Last week, North Korea sent hundreds of hot air balloons loaded with garbage, feces and manure across the border into South Korea. The balloons began crossing the inter-Korean border on the evening of May 28, landing with their payload. Various locations across the country, even reaching Southeast Gyeongsang Province. Pictures published by South Korean media show bags filled with various garbage carried by balloons and dragged south by air currents, and others collided with several population centers in Chungcheong Province. “We call on North Korea to immediately stop its inhumane and vulgar actions,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said in a statement. The memo from the South Korean leadership continues that North Korea’s actions “constitute a clear violation of international law and seriously threaten the safety of our citizens.”

The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) claimed responsibility for the action on behalf of North Korean authorities, describing it as retaliation against South Korean activists who usually send propaganda materials, audio-visual materials, food and medicine to North Korea using their own balloons. South Korea banned this type of initiative in 2020 in response to increasingly harsh and threatening responses from the North Korean government, but the actions of democracy activists in South Korea have continued in recent years. Kim Kang Il, North Korea’s Deputy Minister of National Defense, said on Sunday that “launching leaflets via balloons is a dangerous provocation that can be used for a specific military purpose.” The official accused South Korea of ​​resorting to “psychological warfare” measures by scattering “garbage” in border areas, and warned that the North intends to respond “in accordance with the law of retaliation.”